Poem from incarceration

Mods: I tried posting this in the writing forum but was not allowed, please could you move it to there & allow me to post there also, thank you thegeezaguy

Same time, different place

It’s the same old situation, it’s the same old boring games we’re still participating in even though it drives us insane.
It’s the same nameless faces that have been to all the places from each & every walk of life, all types of different races.
It’s the same old keys a clanking when they’re opening up the doors, it’s the same old cold, hard, carpet less floors.
It’s the same old goal they’ve set that they’re trying to achieve all the tricks of rehabilitation up the systems sleeve.
It’s the same old workshops working for a poor pittance of a pay the governors treating the people inside them as modern day slaves.
It’s the same old forms of punishment for stepping out of line, with the ever present threat of more charges & more time.
It’s the same heartless faces that are here to keep us in, the ones that try & claim they’ve never committed a sin.
It’s the same old stories coming from us, how we are not guilty, we were set up & all that kind of stuff.
It’s the same old slop they’re serving trying to pass it off as food, always tasteless trash imitating food.
It’s the same old wanabee gangsters pulling all the strings, selling, pushing, dealing their drugs & other things.
It’s the same old beatings happening for the same old disrespects, people forever putting other people to the test.
It’s the same old way of escaping using the drugs within the walls, the ones they let in to keep people doped up & under control.
It’s the same old person bullied to the point of cutting their wrists, their life flowing from them just because someone wanted to take the piss.
It’s the same old letters landing under our doors, family & loved ones begging us not to go away anymore.
It’s the same upsetting visits our children crying as they leave, our partners eyes pleading…please, please, please.
It’s the same old waste of life we’ve wasted times before, locked away from the world behind bars & a steel door.
It’s the same old answers to the problems that put us in here, but can we ever use them to keep us out of here.
It’s the same old situation, it’s the same old boring games we are still participating in, even though it drives us insane.

Having had a hard time in the line of work I chose ten years ago & suffering P.T.S I ended up getting into fights and served a couple of prison sentences for said fights. I managed to smuggle some of my writing out and am in the process of digitalising it ready to make an e-book. I chose to post this poem as it is one of the deeper ones that may help people who have never had to be in that situation understand what it is like to be locked away, it is not all fun & games as the MSM would have people in Britain believe.

Prisons are a dangerous, dirty, nasty places where you are on guard 24/7 and have to fight at the drop of the hat, luckily I was allowed to jog the yards & attend a couple of gyms before things went wrong for me. As it happen'd I was sticking up for a lad who was being bullied, the previous week a 22 year old had died because of bullying & I could not have letting somebody be bullied to death on my conscious. I broke the bullies nose & a rib and was lucky that an outside charge wasn't brought. I was given 28 days extra on my sentence in an adjudication for helping a young first timer, that is how bad jails are. After that incident I was as is termed 'ghost shipped' all around the country's jails from segregation unit to segregation unit making visits impossible as I had protested at the charge, extra days & shipping all around. I was finally released from Elmley jail on the isle of Sheppy that is near Dover, I am from the North of England. That is how bad prison can be you get into trouble for helping a young lad and punishing a bully that caused another inmate to hang themselves.

Anyway enough doom & gloom, I am working on a poem for remembrance day at the moment as well as attempting my first novel and was toying with the idea of posting the poem on here. Now I know it is ok to post poems you's will probably notice the odd one from myself.

Thanks anybody who has taken time to read this thread & please don't be prejudice just as I have spent time in jails. I have done many other beneficial things things in my 31 years in this realm of existence, I have saved lives yet taken them too, taught people, supported people & pro created (twice) but to be honest it will be a close call when I get to Saint Peters gates.



Peace be with us all.

Thanks for posting!

A good friend of mine was thrown in the pen in 08 for 2 years for drug charges because he refused to snitch on other people. Other than his family I was the only one who would go visit him when I got the chance, he said it was horrible in there and from what he's told me since getting out I don't doubt it (not that I ever did before).

It's a good thing if you can get out with your sanity, hell it's good if you get out alive...

reply to post by theguygeeza

Most of my poetry was written in jail as well. Lots of time to think. My time was easier than most, as I have a cousin doing life. He's been there since 1996, a couple of months after he turned 18. Everybody out there playing around needs to get serious; prison sucks....

Anyway, here's a link to mine if you want to check it out...

Poetry

reply to post by visualmiscreant
Hey thanks for sharing some poetry with me & reading mine. 18 years old is an awful age to be given life, your own life has not even started at that age I noticed what you mean about some people having an easier ride but felt nothing untoward them, or the so called 'officers' ha. I did meet a couple of ex services men working at different places though & they were as helpful & sly as they could be without risking their jobs.

I think I wrote in those places as a way of forgetting, and removing myself from 23 hour lock-down towards the end of my second sentence. In the Seg or block as you may have called it we have no TV (thankfully) and no other privilege's except an hour exercise a day and a library cart once a week. I had no power source for my FM radio so had to buy batteries and make them last, only being allowed to spend £5 a week. I used my time to train, think & write like yourself. I also understood a spiritual side of me that I never knew I had so my time wasn't unproductive.

I don't have time to read your poetry now but will bookmark or save the page after I post this reply & muse over it. Bookmarked, many thanks.

Peace be with you.

reply to post by ArrowsNV
Thank you for reading and for commenting. Prisons on your side of the pond are a whole lot harsher as I have watched a couple of documentary's on them, I think on documentrywire.com or another site. Anybody is lucky to get out alive you are right, although there was suicides, a stabbing, a gun thrown over the wall in one jail and myself fighting against a bully to save a young first timer nothing as dramatic as the Pens & at least the segregation/block units brought out a creative and spiritual side I never knew I had.

Take care